the day after thanksgiving (black friday)....

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving.  we did here.  i hosted dinner for 21 family members yesterday....it was chaotic and loud and wonderful.  the food was fantastic and plentiful....i still feel like jabba the hut this morning.  the day went by in a blink as it always does. 

 these pictures were taken at the very beginning of my thanksgiving morning as i prepped the turkey, stuffed to the brim and wearing his cheesecloth diaper.  gotta keep all of that gorgeous stuffing inside, right?   and as the day was so chaotic, these were the only pictures i took. but be assured the turkey was beautiful when he came out of the oven and provided us with a meal to be truly thankful for.

i woke up in a total fog after taking two benadryl tablets before bed the night before.  my friend had told me that she takes them to help her sleep and she sleeps good and hard every night...her doctor told her that it was perfectly okay as they are non-addicting and harmless....

it didn't work for me....

it had the opposite effect and i was up half the night with my brain buzzing and feeling like i wanted to crawl out of my skin.....

never.ever.again

don woke me up at 8:00 am which was the time i had wanted to get my turkey into the oven.

c'est la vie.  

the turkey got into the oven at 9:45.  

in the end, the fog lifted, the turkey was done to perfection and the 

day went off without a hitch.  the sides and the desserts were fantastic.

 and as hostess, my refrigerator is filled with leftovers...

we will be doing some shopping later today after the crazy crowds have dispersed.

you may have noticed the bottom cabinets were finished being painted and our new flooring is in. 

more on that later.

enjoy the day after and all of those tasty leftovers.  i know we will.

ok, so remember?.....

when the birds ate our patio chairs.  i posted about that 

here

so we got some new cushions for the chairs and they looked great...

but then our $5 garage sale replacement patio umbrella broke and i posted about that here

here 

well, don fixed the umbrella again and it all looked pretty again,

until last week...

when someone (and i'm not naming any names this time either  cough, coughdoncough) left the umbrella in the up position 

again... 

and we had a pretty nasty windy storm...well you can guess what happened, can't you?

wrong!!!  we still have the umbrella...however,

it performed like a sail and sent our table flying into the corner of the stairs to the doorwall and 

now our table is topless!!!

sigh!!!

and it was really pretty glass, a pale aqua with leaves imprinted into it and a built-in lazy susan

i guess we will just cut a big old piece of ugly plywood and slap that on top of the frame. 

hey, it will probably make the umbrella look good!!!

productive day.....

i don't seem to have too many productive days when i have a day off of work.  i am so whacked out from the work week that the weekends leave me barely able to scrub a toilet.  (oh, that's right, i don't scrub toilets. the boys do. because they mess them up).  but today, i went grocery shopping with don (which was a mistake because he said we spent $30.00 more that we would have spent had i not gone with him.... remember this?)

anyway, 

the one thing i do every weekend is make sunday dinner.  i usually work past dinnertime on the weekdays and really, who cooks on saturday night?  so sunday is my day to shine.  today, i went grocery shopping, made 5 meals, finished 2 loads of laundry, painted my living and sitting rooms and shingled my roof.

okay, i didn't do the last two things but i did make 5 meals.

i made beef enchiladas,

stuffed peppers,

cream of mushroom soup (thanks again, gemma)

corn on the cob (that was easy)

a big pot of spaghetti sauce,

and a pork roast shredded into pulled pork sandwiches.

i've never made this before and it was fabulous....and was one of the easiest things i've made.  that, and the corn with a salad was dinner tonight.....we were full....

this one....

laid at my feet and waited for scraps....

which he got mixed in with his dog food.  (yes, we feed our dog people food sometimes, if i don't, he gives me the stink eye, the sassy brat!)

we were so full that we needed to walk off all of that good food.  so we gathered up our happy and full dog and our wonderful neighbors curt and laura and walked around the 'hood.

we walked...

and walked...

and walked
because i made this for dessert...

strawberry pie

that deserves a closer look...

doesn't it????

so honey, that is where that extra $30.00 went....right into your stomach!!